What is the main goal for HOSA [Health Occupations Students of America]?

Clarissa Wong, senior: “HOSA’s about bringing awareness to the community. Since we’re a health club we focus specifically on health issues. Last year we did an event called ‘Heart Chase’ in partnership with the American Heart Association. Heart disease being a big problem in the United States, it was something we thought we could address through this event. We do get a lot of kids coming into HOSA who know that they want to go into health, but are unsure of what direction to go in. I mean if you look at the medical branch as a whole, it’s huge. And to say that you want to be a doctor, that’s really broad. As a school club, another part of our responsibility is to help these kids, especially the younger ones, help them find out what in health, what in medicine interests them the most.”

How long has HOSA been a club at Algonquin?

Clarissa: “HOSA’s been around for five years; we’ve really tried to expand in the past couple of years. I think we’ve done a pretty good job. We’ve gotten a lot more underclassmen.”

Who can contribute to the club?

Claire Duffy, senior: “Anyone who has any interest in the health field at all is welcome and can contribute. We have a ton of different events throughout the year that anyone can be suited for. Like Clarissa said, we have ‘Heart Chase,’ and we also have our conference and competition in the spring. That has the ‘competition’ aspect, with knowledge based tests and hands on activities. That includes CPR, medical assisting, group projects. There’s also a panel of health professionals so you can go around and hear about tons of different fields and careers and somewhat have an idea of what you want to do. Within our school we just have awareness events, like we did breast cancer in October, then heart awareness, and also just general stuff that anyone might want to know. Like we have health and wellness week.”

What are your goals for this club, and what have you already accomplished?

Claire: “We’ve done a really good job of gaining new members and having a more diverse group. Like Clarissa said this year we definitely got a lot of underclassmen;in the past we’ve seen a similar demographic of people, but this year we’ve really expanded. Last year was all Asian girls, this year we definitely got a lot more diverse people of different races. Going forward, we want to expand even more. We definitely want to get more guys in our club. We’re still working on that. We did have two in the beginning; now we’re down to one. We want to make sure that anyone’s welcome to come.”

Clarissa: “I think that when you think of the health profession, it’s very narrow and it seems to cater to a very specific demographic. Usually you see that a certain race or gender tends to join clubs that specialize in professional fields and that have been mostly women or girls. It’s also kind of our job to say that it’s not just surgeons or doctors; there are pharmacists and biomedical researchers. And I think that like promotion of a broader health field kind of helped us widen our group.”

How do members benefit from the club?

Jyothi Polackcal, senior: “There is an aspect of community awareness. We work to educate people within the club and within the Algonquin community, and spreading the idea such as ‘Heart Chase’ and partnering up with the American Heart Association. We basically spread our information through bake sales and even within the club we do presentations.”

What is the most fun aspect of the club?

Jyothi: “Honestly, the most fun aspect is just being a member as a whole. You really have to be somewhat invested in the club to experience the ‘Heart Chase’ event, the competition at the end of the year in April, health and wellness awareness week.”

Clarissa: “I think generally, if you’re in a community of people that share the same professional goals as you,there is kind of a connection that happens with that and that social aspect of HOSA is probably what makes the club so fun.”